I heard of the seaside mini restos in coastal road when I was young, my parents always go there for a side trip and eat during midnight times and then they will bring home lobsters cooked in Szechuan style, my mom told me that they bought it in a paluto resto in seaside, and its located near the sea in coastal road, right after Baclaran. Manila Bay is not that polluted those years ( late 80’s and early 90’s), but then I heard that the paluto in seaside transferred to a new area, which is located in Baclaran, they moved there because Manila Bay started to stink and its not healthy already eating a good food with a foul smell coming from the sea, that’s the time when Manila Bay started to die, thanks to garbage pollution.
I encountered the seaside paluto mini restos from my wife’s mom, because she buys big river crabs there and visit this resto of Aling Tonya, when the next time she went there, I joined here to check out the place and it was a seafood market for fresh catch, all kinds of fresh catch from fish to crabs are in there, most of them are still alive, there I spotted Aling Tonya’s crab selling booth and then after buying some crabs, they escorted us to their mini resto outside the market, there they cooked the crabs in Szechuan style. The recipe is good and one of the best, you can also request if you want the crabs be cooked in spicy or sweet. But its hard to go there, its slippery, wet, muddy, stinky and also noisy. Then my wife’s mom decided to ask for the recipe, then the staff of Aling Tonya’s shared the cooking technique, so she bought the crabs from Aling Tonya, and bought ingredients in a grocery, after two trials of cooking, Mama got the right taste and it’s more delicious than Aling Tonya’s, so our technique now is to buy crabs there and cooked it at home. Always fresh and they said that crabs tastes good if they are cooked alive... poor crabs.
Few days ago, my wife is googling something about the food in Baclaran, because she misses the recipe of that steamed fish with soy sauce cooked by my Aunt in HK, so got the idea that we try visit Aling Tonya, our plan is to buy crabs and then let them cook it for us and bring it home. We also have an idea to search for that Lechon vendor in Baclaran, which I heard it tastes better than Cebu Lechon.
And then her wish came true, we drop by at Aling Tonya’s resto after we got stranded in a traffic going to Resorts World Manila, our plan is to attend that Cinderella play preview, eat in a nice Chinese restaurant and have an afternoon tea in an expensive tea café hahaha. But then that perspective was changed after the traffic, We landed in Baclaran and it rained so hard,the only nearest shelter for us is the Seaside Paluto area.
We went there and decided to eat lunch.
They now have an impressive renovation, its no longer dirty or stinky. the fresh catch market is now organized and clean ,they have a concrete pavement and the restaurants are now located at the 2nd floor, all are air conditioned, clean and quiet.
Aling Tonya’s is popular to seaside paluto visitors and fans, but some comments are that they are expensive, but what the heck, we are here for a nice lunch and we want Aling Tonya’s to cook it for us. So we ordered two kinds of food just to test our 1st time 1st hand experience dining. Also, it’s the first time my wife is brought here in a paluto area.
After ordering our food, we check out the restaurant…
quiet and clean… and its lunch time…its weird that we are the 3rd customer who are dining there, I heard that many eaters arrive during night time and after office hours.
some photo of our ordering moment…. there’s my wife Lace
That’s me
After some 20 minutes – waiting and watching Eat Bulaga in a small tv inside the resto, our two big river crabs arrived cooked in Szechuan style..ohhhhh yummy.
the cooking is fast and we chose the affordable crabs only, and not the heavy ones. Two crabs is more for us, but for me..I can finish it all ( I have tried eating 10 crabs already hahahaa)
Depth of food
I also ordered a Camaron, and because that I don’t want to eat tempura that day, I want a bite size Camaron, but their Camaron is like Tempura with different cuts only, but its okay, I super enjoyed eating this with no stress.
we also ordered this green seaweeds salad
Selfie first before eating…..
I want to dig in na! ahahahah
so here’s our bill Php 1,043
check out that cooking charge at Php 290 – if we order two crabs in a fine resto – one crab is priced at more than Php800. so beat that price in Aling Tonya’s.
view at the 2nd floor of Seaside Paluto in Baclaran
here’s the fresh catch seafood market
oks sya di ba?
then we spotted the main supplier of yummy salmons in most restos in Manila.
I think they are supplying a booth vendor here.
here’s the building of Seaside Paluto
the signage…
the building.. I’m glad that they got a nice place for seafood lovers
to go Seafood Paluto in Baclaran, just look for that Cave KTV, the bldg sits right next to it.
